Comments on: Biodynamic gardening update: July 2010

By: welshbird

welshbird — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 11:12:02 +0000

Thanks Steve – I’ve had a look at the chilli plants and can’t see anything obvious on them at the moment – the leaves are sticky though and there’s a strange cobweb-type substance over them. I’m going to try the soapy-water technique too (with “original” scented washing-up liquid as the lemon didn’t seem to agree with yours!) – here’s hoping my leaves stay put!

By: steve h

steve h — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 00:58:01 +0000

The Chilli-pepper culprits are very small almost translucent-green Caterpillars, from some sort of Moth. They are on the underside of the leaves, and when disturbed, roll up in a ball and roll off the leaf to the soil, where they seem to disappear! They then burrow into a pepper to pupate (half inch long brown things)its at this stage you usually find them, whilst making tea!
I tried washing them off with soapy-water like you can do for greenfly and other caterpillars, but i used lemon washing up liquid, and nearly “nuked” the plants. Peppers don`t seem to like this, (or maybe Lemon) because the next day all the leaves had dropped off!

By: donnyrob

donnyrob — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 10:15:17 +0000

havin a little used shed at the bottom of my garden im wondering if a chicken house conversion is the way forward to save the day on the slug issue? being quite partial to a boiled egg in the morning it will pay dividends both ways. any tips?